Ukraine if you want to, David Cameron, our cash is not for burning

WHERE the hell did they find the cash? Down the back of a sofa in the Treasury?

Suddenly, David Cameron was able to pledge £1billion of our money to Ukraine [GETTY]

Did some loose change fall out of a fat-cat banker’s pockets the last time they were knocking back champagne at Number 10?

Suddenly, David Cameron was able to pledge £1billion of our money to Ukraine.

Yes, you did read that correctly and despite the fact that you and I are funding this largesse, no I wasn’t asked either.

For a Government that preaches how we are all in this together and has introduced (probably rightly) drastic budget cuts that have closed hospitals and fire stations, the arrogance is breathtaking.

What makes the decision even more puzzling and unjustifiable to many is that the Government decided to splash the cash on the same day a report was published that concluded national security would be risked by proposed plans to shrink the Army to the size and capability of something more akin to a banana republic border guard.

The cuts, which will shrink the British Army to its smallest size in centuries, are a dangerous gamble, said the Commons Defence Committee, which singularly fails to “present a convincing blueprint for an Army that can effectively counter uncertain threats and unforeseen circumstances”.

It also says there will be “considerable doubts” about whether Britain will be able to defend itself.

When did Vladimir Putin become our chancellor of the exchequer?

So let me get this straight: we have cut funding to the Army to the extent that it is highly likely we could not defend ourselves in the event of a security threat at exactly the same time that we send millions and millions of pounds to a country most of us neither know nor particularly care about.

When did Vladimir Putin become our chancellor of the exchequer?

The argument trotted out by the Eurofanatics is that we must resolve the Ukraine crisis as it is virtually in our backyard and if we fail to address it now, we could reap a dangerous whirlwind in years to come.

However how does reducing the once mighty British Army to something resembling the 3rd Croydon Boy Scouts serve to protect us all?

Yes it is distressing that scores of people have been killed in Ukraine and that Putin is effectively invading a country illegally.

However in our country we have hundreds of thousands of people who have been devastated by floods, collapsed railways or budget cuts, and thousands of elderly and vulnerable who it is feared will not survive the winter because they cannot afford their heating bills.

Surely we owe some degree of loyalty to our own? You know, the ones who actually pay the bloody taxes being sent abroad.

So just what lies behind the Government finding it necessary to splash money like a drunken sailor on Navy Day?

The answer is a desperate and sickeningly craven need to keep up with the Johanns and Josés of Europe and be seen as “significant players on the world stage”.

Let’s be truthful: the cameras of the world will be on a leader striding purposefully into an EU summit and joining an e11billion bail-out of a country that has the potential to nudge nations to the brink of a Third World War.

Popping into an old folks’ home in Stoke Poges and assuring everyone they can turn the gas up hardly carries the same clout, does it?

Quite why we are in thrall to an institution such as the EU is one of life’s great mysteries. Have we not picked up on the fact that this is a union so economically inept its accounts have not been passed for 18 years?

David Cameron would do well to reflect on the growing anti-Europe sentiment here and also, tellingly, why Putin found time to call US President Barack Obama and French counterpart François Hollande but did not bother speaking to him.

This grandstanding spend, spend, spend policy does little to improve the situation for the Prime Minister.

ALL hail Major General James Cowan, who has let his troops know his views on everything from how you should behave at dinner parties to how you should eat a bacon roll and even acceptable writing styles.

Appalled at how those under his command behave, the top soldier who has led soldiers into conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan fired off a lengthy and all-encompassing missive.

Good on him. Our forebears would be horrified to see how keen we are to slob out and eat with our hands. Dining has been reduced to the equivalent of pigs’ feeding time so more power to the Major General.

IN A policy suggestion as venal as it is impractical, Ed Miliband announces that a Labour government would allow more terminally ill patients the right to die at home. Really?

How will he fund the drips that require regular monitoring, the syringe drivers, the special beds, the ripple mattresses, the electronic cushions, the slings, the hoists, the slide sheets, the commodes, the drugs and the nurses?

Vile and dysfunctional vote-grabbing stunts like this serve only to make any sane person question the political health of dopey Miliband.